TIP LEADS TO A CACHE OF COCAINE HIDDEN INSIDE CAR

In what is believed to be the largest discovery of cocaine in Indiana, police and federal agents on Thursday found 50 kilograms of the drug inside a false compartment of a car near Elkhart.

But the discovery almost didn`t happen, partly because of a police dog`s failure to sniff out the cocaine.

At least four people were being sought for questioning, and a formal announcement about the confiscated cache was planned Friday by James Richmond, the U.S. attorney for northern Indiana.

The cocaine-110 pounds with a high purity content and an estimated street value of $5 million-was seized by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Indiana State Police, according to law enforcement sources.

The seizure, as told by the sources, was reminiscent of scenes from the movie ''The French Connection,'' about a real-life drug ring operating between Marseille, France, and New York that smuggled heroin inside the bodies of European cars.

And like the film drama, there was a chase, though the outcome was never in doubt. In this pursuit, a government airplane went after a flatbed truck lumbering along the Indiana Toll Road. On the truck sat the cocaine-laden car, a disabled Volkswagen Jetta.

Combining luck and perseverance, the sources said, investigators determined that the cocaine was intended for traffickers in Michigan City, 55 miles east of Chicago, and that all 50 kilograms had been secreted in the Jetta at an unknown Lake Erie resort area in Sandusky, Ohio.

The traffickers are suspected of making the drug available in bulk quantities to markets in northwest Indiana and the Chicago area, the sources said.

Events leading up to the seizure began Tuesday, when drug enforcement agents received a tip that the Jetta, with the cocaine aboard, would be leaving Sandusky en route to Michigan City.

The agents and state troopers gathered near South Bend, hoping to spot the car on the Indiana Toll Road. But the surveillance was discontinued that night when the car failed to appear.

Though authorities didn`t know it at the time, the Jetta had developed electrical problems and had broken down in Ohio. Its unknown driver had sent for the truck, which bore a Chicago identification, the sources said.

Shortly after noon Wednesday, the sources said, troopers sighted the Jetta-now aboard the truck-entering Indiana from Ohio on the toll road. However, word of the sighting did not reach the agents until hours later.

It was then that nervous officials scrambled a government aircraft to find the truck and car.

Late that afternoon the plane intercepted the prey on the toll road near Elkhart. A short chase ensued, but the truck finally heeded warnings to stop. A surprised driver, claiming no knowledge of drugs, was allowed to return to Chicago, minus the Jetta, after a search of the car failed to turn up drugs.

It was then that a police dog trained to ferret-out narcotics was allowed to climb over the car, sniffing for anything peculiar.

But the animal gave no signal of hidden contraband anywhere under the metal, sources said.

Undaunted by this failure and convinced their tip was genuine, agents towed the car to a state police garage.

On Thursday they renewed the search, and this time they partially dismantled the car. That is when the cocaine, tightly bundled inside airtight pouches and bags, was uncovered in a false compartment near the trunk.

Late Thursday, police were pressing their search for suspects in the Michigan City area. Among the suspects, police said, was a 29-year-old man who allegedly had been driving the Jetta.